23rd November 1963 – Doctor Who first aired

The first episode of Doctor Who aired by the BBC in the UK on 23rd November 1963. The episode was part one of a four part story calledAn Unearthly Child. The actor who played the first Doctor was William Hartnell. The series has been aired on and off ever since.

Each time an actor left the series the Doctor regenerated into the next actor slated to play the Doctor – a neat trick used to try and keep the series alive. It worked most of the time. So far there have been ten Doctors. The Doctor is a human looking alien, a time lord, from a planet called Gallifrey.

The Doctor travels through space and time in a stolen, obsolete time machine called the TARDIS. The TARDIS is unreliable to put it mildly. Things are constantly breaking down. For instance the TARDIS has something called a chameleon circuit which disguises it as some object that blends in with the local surroundings. During a visit to the UK in the 1960s the TARDIS disguised itself as a police telephone box. Unfortunately the chameleon circuit broke and the TARDIS is now stuck disguised as a police box. Strange how no-one notices. Because the TARDIS is so unreliable it is under constant repair – part of it’s charm – not here the pristine cleanliness of Star Trek.

The really neat thing about the TARDIS (apart from being able to travel in space and time) is that the inside is much larger than the outside. This causes much amusing consternation to any new companions of the Doctor.

The Doctor has had many adversaries but the most popular by far are the Daleks with their favorite expression